24 September 2006

Textile Tuesday Family

"Family"fractal printed on cotton, beaded 16cm x 11cm

Today I finished my piece for the Textile Tuesday challenge. Theme is "Family" and this is a fractal I turned into a "cushion". When I found this fractal some days ago I knew it was my family piece. It looks different now, printed on fabric and beaded, but I still think it was a good choice. My first idea was that this fractal looks like some sort of net or web. To me family should be a "safety net", but most of the time is more like a "spiders web". If it becomes a spiders web, you might have to cut yourself lose to survive.

This has been the second time I printed on fabric and I still have to learn a lot. The black of the fractals background turned out a dark grey. Not sure if it is possible at all to get a real black when printing on fabric, but I am sure it can be better than this. Maybe I have to change the settings for the "paper". Also I learned that a needle hole turns into a white hole, when you remove the stitch. So when stitching on a dark area of a printed fabric, it seems like you have to be very careful. Maybe this is not a problem as soon as I found the perfect setting for the printer, but I will try to keep this in mind in the future.

Re: printing black....you have to set the printer to the best photo resolution and, even then, you probably won't get a deep black.....I just do touch-ups with black fabric ink. Same with any holes that show white. Also, a Sharpie pen if the touch up is small.